Pot Shots From the Grassy Knoll

Two articles online today seemed to me linked in an almost parable-like relationship. The first article reported that the head of the European Central Bank had told a contingent of African leaders that the world economy was at a dangerous point and was in danger of falling on the heads of all nations. The other story was about an unauthorized discharge of a rifle by a hunter that flew 1 ½ miles through the air and struck and killed an Amish girl when it hit her in the head. “A link” you ask incredulously? Well, perhaps this might be a tortured metaphor, but hear me out. The hunter in the second story was cleaning his rifle, getting it back in pristine working condition, when he ignored some fundamental safety protocol and the bullet was sent out on its fatal trajectory……onto the head of an unsuspecting child. In the first story, the ECB is trying to clean out its’ system and is afraid that it may have, for far too long, ignored the fundamentals of an economy and now nervously awaits th

There is something magical in the air and I am not talking about the chemtrails that push conspiracists into apoplexies of paranoia. This is true magic…..of the disappearing kind. As I watched former New Jersey Governor, MF Global CEO and SUV crash-test dummy, Jon Corzine stare blankly at a Congressional committee of blank minds, and state, automaton-like, that he has no idea how $1.2 billion dollars vanished, I began to truly appreciate the level of professional “slight of hand” that somehow fails to appear on these practitioners resumes. Wow, another magic trick! But this magic does not just reside with empty suits offering mercurial testimony. Oh no, it has gone viral. Ever wonder why, despite having both parents working, the family income seems to grow in numerical terms, but not in relative value? That’s the ole classic trick of “tax with one hand-depreciate the dollar with the other”. Frustrated trying to figure that trick out? Don’t beat yourself up too much over your inabilit